Seek the Lord While He May Found
Seek the Lord while he may be found is a well known verse from the well known 55th chapter of Isaiah. Here is more context.
6 Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
7 Let the wicked forsake their ways
and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
We have here a call to the recognizably bad people with apparently measurable wickedness and unrighteousness. Notably, God openly says he will pardon those who respond to his call.
God then says he is not like us. We don’t want them to come to heaven. In the scene in the Titanic where the old women goes to bed, and she sees or is in a kind of heaven. Everyone made it to “heaven” except the clearly evil fiancé. Effectively, God is asking him to turn. He wants him in heaven too.
Indeed, God is not like us.
Seek the Lord While He May Be Found is a Call to All of Us
We met with a person who has very low self esteem recently. She had read from Genesis 1:26-28 that we are made in God’s image.
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
She could not connect this with herself. We noted it means she, like God, is creative, valuable, capable and lovable. She shook her head and said that could not be her. She sat up a little straighter, however. We can be drawn to help such people, and we do pray she comes to faith. She seems a hurt and lost sheep that needs more comfort which God has.
What about the abusive person who as a parent probably causes girls like this to feel so low? We are not drawn to such abusive people. God sees that they are also hurt people. He is reaching out to them and above even gives them a welcome noting that he draws near to even them. We have a friend who has a ministry to serial killers. Yes, God loves serial killers too.
That is our God.
Of course, to God, we are all evil. We are fallen.
He does not tell us to just go on in our way. He asks us, and the bad people, to turn to Him. This involves turning away.
Everyone needs comfort and understanding. God has it. He loves each person as He made them and knows the good in them even if it is hard to spot. God does not make trash.
However, can we turn from our empty ways to God who reaches our deepest heart?
God, help us to turn and turn again to you who saves us from ourselves again and again.
